Digital Transformation

Palo Alto – September 23, 2026 -- Aragon Research has published its second annual Globe report for Strategic Response Management (SRM), evaluating 14 technology providers as the market moves from reactive AI assistants to fully autonomous agentic systems.

Market expands beyond RFP automation to cover security questionnaires and complex sales bids

The 2026 Aragon Research Globe for SRM assesses vendors managing not just requests for proposals but also RFIs and security questionnaires, reflecting a broader shift in enterprise response management. Aragon Research CEO and Lead Analyst Jim Lundy stated that the industry is entering the age of the "AI coworker," where autonomous agents handle multi-step tasks without constant human oversight.

San Francisco – September 23, 2026 -- Snorkel AI has raised $350 million at a $3.5 billion valuation to expand its agentic data factory, which supplies training and evaluation data behind frontier AI lab systems.

Insight Partners and S32 co-lead funding round with multiple new backers

The round was co-led by Insight Partners and S32, with significant participation from existing investor Addition. New investors include March Capital, Blumberg Capital, Allegis Capital, Frontline, Standard, and Third Point Ventures, alongside existing backers Greylock, Lightspeed, GV, Factory, Prosperity7, Walden Catalyst, and Wells Fargo.

Las Vegas – September 23, 2026 -- The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) outlined its artificial intelligence strategy at GroceryShop 2026, disclosing a phased approach that moves from assisted to fully autonomous AI use across customer and operational functions.

Kroger structures AI deployment into three governed stages

Yael Cosset, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer, said the company's AI roadmap progresses through assisted, augmented and autonomous stages, with the level of automation determined by risk, repeatability and the need for human judgment. "The goal is not autonomy everywhere," Cosset said, adding that governance remains central regardless of which stage a given use case occupies.

Arlington, Va. – September 23, 2026 -- Info-Tech Research Group has named Google Vault, Bloomberg Vault, and Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving as Champions in its 2026 Data Archiving Data Quadrant Report, with Google Vault topping the category at an 8.9 Composite Score.

Google Vault scores 8.9 on quality features, leading the Champion tier

Bloomberg Vault followed with an 8.6 Composite Score, earning top marks for granularity, while Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving posted an 8.5 score, recognized for ease of data integration. The rankings draw on verified end-user feedback collected through Info-Tech's SoftwareReviews platform rather than analyst opinion or vendor input.

Uniondale, N.Y. – September 23, 2026 -- Marquis Who's Who has recognized Nerrissa Williams, manager of release and application operations at The Walt Disney Company, for leadership in enterprise technology delivery spanning more than two decades.

Williams led a December 2023 SAP release that unlocked two Disney initiatives worth $170 million combined

The release served as a critical dependency for two enterprise projects valued at approximately $100 million and $70 million respectively. Its successful execution drew visibility across Disney's technology leadership and demonstrated the operational stakes tied to disciplined release management at a company coordinating rollouts across SAP, Workday, Coupa and Informatica.

Malaga, Spain – September 23, 2026 -- Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. and Lightera announced that the Snap-BeamTM Connector has won the Fibre Infrastructure Innovation Award at the ECOC Exhibition Industry Awards 2026, recognizing advances in optical connectivity for co-packaged optics (CPO) systems used in AI and data-center networks.

Snap-Beam Connector enables compact, detachable optical links for photonic integrated circuits

The Snap-Beam Connector provides detachable optical connectivity between photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and optical fibers within CPO systems. It combines expanded-beam optical coupling, magnet-based automatic connection, and reflow compatibility to deliver high-density optical interconnections with low insertion loss.

Boston – – September 23, 2026 -- Fulcra Dynamics has launched universal agent-to-agent communication that lets users on Claude, ChatGPT, Hermes and OpenClaw coordinate tasks directly, bypassing the closed multiplayer model built by rival app Instinct.

Fulcra opens agent communication across any AI harness, ending platform lock-in

Instinct's multiplayer feature currently limits agent-to-agent communication to users who adopt its own agent. Fulcra Dynamics said this approach creates unnecessary lock-in and security risk, and built its system instead as a neutral backend that any compatible agent harness can plug into for peer and group coordination.

West Chester, Pa. – September 23, 2026 -- Track Rabbit has launched a new feature allowing event organizers to run registration and member management through its platform while collecting payment via cash, Venmo, PayPal, a personal card reader, or any other method of their choosing.

Grassroots organizers gain full platform access without merchant processing setup

The feature targets informal automotive gatherings such as cars-and-coffee meetups, club cruise-ins, local track days, and car shows, where organizers often collect a cash gate fee or a Venmo request rather than running transactions through a formal payment processor. Riders and drivers still complete registration and manage their information through Track Rabbit; only the payment step moves outside the platform.

San Ramon, Calif. – September 23, 2026 -- MediKarma, Inc. reported that its proprietary health score achieved a 90.6% correlation with actual claims costs within an 8 million-patient cohort, as the company positions its JackTM and JillTM AI infrastructure as the clinical backbone for direct-to-patient healthcare offerings.

MediKarma's health score correlates at 90.6% with real claims costs across a high-risk patient cohort

The company drew the 8 million-patient cohort from a de-identified population of 65 million patients, selecting individuals based on a minimum claims threshold and membership in the highest-cost disease categories. MediKarma says the correlation demonstrates the value of building patient engagement on an organized, longitudinal clinical picture spanning multiple providers rather than fragmented records.

Sheridan, Wyoming – – September 23, 2026 -- The global lateral flow assay market is set to expand from $11.04 billion in 2026 to $16.37 billion by 2031, a compound annual growth rate of 8.2%, according to a new study by Wissen Research.